Consumer Responses to Sexual Appeals in Cross-Cultural Advertisements

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of cultural values on crosscultural consumer responses to sex appeals in advertising. Special emphasis is placed on examining how consumers uncertainty avoidance index (UAI) influences their responses to sexual appeals in advertising. The study employs a 2.2 factorial between subject, post test only experimental design to study these relationships. Results from MANOVA analysis demonstrate that there are main effects of sexual appeals and consumers UAI on their attitudes toward the ad(Aad). The interaction effect between UAI and sexual appeals is also statistically significant. The usefulness of consumer cultural values in predicting cross national consumer responses to advertising is discussed. Implications and extensions into other crosscultural settings are suggested for future research.